


empire of dirt

by glorious_spoon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dark, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-22
Updated: 2011-05-22
Packaged: 2017-12-15 13:10:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/849925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/pseuds/glorious_spoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Castiel is patient and Dean is defiant. Coda to 6.22, short.</p>
            </blockquote>





	empire of dirt

**Author's Note:**

> _You could have it all_  
>  My empire of dirt  
> I will let you down  
> I will make you hurt  
> If I could start again  
> A million miles away  
> I would keep myself  
> I would find a way  
> -Nine Inch Nails; 'Hurt'

“You must understand,” Castiel says, softly. “Surely now, you understand.”  
  
Dean glares up at him, skin down to bone and red with his brother’s blood. Fierce eyes with no sense behind them, only fury. “You can go fuck yourself.”  
  
Castiel cups his cheek, and the blood is gone. He raises Dean up from the dirty floor upon which he has been kneeling; a gesture, and Dean’s gaunt and naked body is strong, healthy, clothed. Soft clean garments, and nothing like the rough flannel and old leather he’s worn his whole life. His thumb strokes along the line of Dean’s cheekbone, and the wear and worry of years melt away. Dean flinches away from his gentle touch like it’s a blow.  
  
“I raised you up once,” Castiel whispers. “I can raise you up again. I can give you anything. Everything.”  
  
“Sure thing, Mephistopheles,” Dean snarls. “I want my brother back. I want my friend Cas back. Can you give me that?”  
  
“I am no demon. Surely you can see that it’s better this way?”  
  
He pulls his hand back, willing Dean to stand. To stay, at last, and accept the gifts that Castiel is offering him.  
  
Heaven and earth rest within his grasp, and yet this, still, he cannot compel. Dean pulls away from him, twists away, falling as weakness sinks back into his limbs, as chains wrap themselves around his wrists, as the clothes and health and transitory youth melt away from him. He lands hard in the pool of blood that spreads beneath his brother’s body, thin and aged and twisted yet again. His head is bowed; he reaches out to touch Sam’s still face with trembling fingers, leaving smears of red behind.  
  
“He would not accept me,” Castiel explains quietly. “He chose his fate, just as you are choosing yours.”  
  
“Newsflash,” Dean growls without raising his head. “I ain’t gonna accept you either. Not now, not the next time you walk through that door, not  _ever_. So you can just cut the crap now. Send me downstairs. Get it the hell over with.”  
  
Castiel rests his hand briefly on the curve of Dean’s skull, fragile and familiar. Dean Winchester is precious to him, still. His body is the one that Castiel built for him, branded with Castiel’s own handprint. Dean  _belongs_  to him in a way that nothing else does, and he’ll come to see that in time. He must. “You loved me, once.”  
  
“Yeah, well, that was before you went all Vader on my ass.” Dean turns his head aside, sinks down until both his hands are braced on the floor, in the blood and filth that he keeps choosing, over and over and over again against all reason. When he speaks again, his voice is dull, tired. “Damn it, Cas. Just kill me already. Please.”  
  
Castiel touches him again, and a shudder rolls down the sharp bare line of Dean’s back. It hurts to see, but it cannot last forever. It cannot. Dean will come back to him in the end, because he has no other choice. “You will accept me,” he says gently. “In time.”  
  
Dean doesn’t answer, but Castiel was expecting that. He has gone through this a thousand times already, and a thousand times it has been the same. Someday, though. Someday it will be different.  
  
He pulls himself away from the dark room, back to Heaven and the business of chastising Raphael’s wayward followers. Back to breathing in and drinking in the potency of a million souls, the worship of billions more, power beyond all measure at his fingertips, the whole world his to command. To make right, finally.  
  
It should be enough; more than enough. It should be everything he’s dreamed of and more.  
  
In the back of his mind, though, a defiant figure still kneels, whispering doubts; casting seeds of darkness over all the good he has achieved.


End file.
